


Sunsets and Time

by Strange and Intoxicating -rsa- (strangeandintoxicating)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Happy Sheith Ending, I didn't watch Season 8 and neither should you, M/M, No Spoilers, Sweet Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 03:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16987533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeandintoxicating/pseuds/Strange%20and%20Intoxicating%20-rsa-
Summary: Watching sunsets and confessing.“Don’t… don’t judge me too much. Sometimes, when I focused on you, I could hear you. It was just a whisper, but it was... it was everything, Keith. Listening to you talk… listening to your breathing… even your heartbeat. It…”It gave me peace. It gave me hope.Sheith soft, sweet ending.





	Sunsets and Time

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing lots of wonderful, fun, and happy Sheith endings. This is one of them.
> 
> If you would like to read the Russian version, check it out here: https://ficbook.net/readfic/7696332

Time heals all wounds.

It was a phrase that had always bothered Shiro, ever since he was young. No, rather, ever since he found out of his disease, about the future he would never have.

Time. It was always time.

Time heals all wounds, and for some, there is no time. For some there is only the looming fear of the future and whatever it would bring crashing down upon their heads. It was something that he had gotten used to, accepted as reality—albeit grudgingly.

Still…

“Hey.”

It was almost like a whisper on the wind, and Shiro turned to look behind him at Keith, who still walked with a slight limp as he made his way from the med bay. Shiro turned back to stare at the sun set, at the future that would be there for them, at a future he never expected would come.

“Hey, yourself.”

The silence was comfortable, something that Shiro had long ago accepted as simply good and right between them. For others it may have been awkward, but for them?

Shiro was willing to simply bask in the warmth, adjusting his weight from one foot to the other. The warmth of Keith’s shoulder next to his, the warmth of the sun, the warmth of the blood running through his veins that was disease-free—they were all so very different and yet…

“Where do we go from here?”

 _Where do we go from here?_ Shiro almost wanted to mimic the question back at Keith, allow it to be an echo, because the truth simply was that he didn’t know. He didn’t know what could possibly happen after fighting Haggar. He never really thought about where they could go, what they could do.

“I—I don’t know.” It was the only thing Shiro could say, the only honest thing he could say. “Just… we continue. We move on. We work to rebuild Earth and keep going.”

Keep going, keep moving, keep breathing.

“It just feels—”

“Surreal?” Keith added, and it felt like the right word. This was all so surreal, so peculiar.

“Yeah,” Shiro sighed. He reached up to touch his shoulder, at the Altean magic that gave him strength that he hadn’t had in…

Ever. Even before he was the Champion, before the Galra attached the prosthetic to him, he had never had such strength.

He had never had a future to look forward to, either.

“I don’t know what to do now. I’ve spent so much time fighting to live that…”

“You don’t know how to just live.”

Shiro nodded, and he wondered if Keith was looking at him or at the sunset. Shiro didn’t have the courage to look away from the reds and oranges. It was like the sky was on fire, and so was he.

“I don’t, either.”

Shiro knew that. He knew that if there was anyone else in the world who understood how he felt, understood that pain that ran its way through his veins, so much like the memory of his disease, it would be Keith. Keith had never felt the pain of his muscles screaming in protest as he moved, as he breathed, but Keith knew pain like few others did. The loss of his father, his loneliness, his despair.

All of it may not have been physical, but it still left scars deep enough to hit the bone.

Shiro didn’t know what he could say, because there weren’t words that could really encompass what he wanted to say, and it seemed that Keith understood that, too.

They stood in the peaceful silence, in the beauty that was the setting sun and the setting day, listening to Keith’s breathing and the faint hum of his arm. It was a comfort that Shiro never really realized he needed.

“In the Black Paladin…it was always quiet.” Shiro could remember the silence, the increasing panic of the void. “I… I didn’t even have a heartbeat to listen to. There was simply nothing.”

Even thinking about it sent waves of terror down Shiro’s spine, and he closes his eyes, hard, to fight down the bile.

“But… I had _you_.”

Keith’s arm pressed against his, just enough to remind Shiro to breathe.

“Me?”

Shiro nodded, but he finally let out a little, “Yeah,” when he realized Keith probably wasn’t looking at him. “Don’t… don’t judge me too much. Sometimes, when I focused on you, I could hear you. It was just a whisper, but it was... it was _everything_ , Keith. Listening to you talk… listening to your breathing… even your heartbeat. It…”

_It gave me peace. It gave me hope._

But Shiro didn’t need to say it, because Keith knew. Keith always knew. And Shiro knew that because Keith’s knuckles brushed up against his, and it was as though he could feel Keith’s heartbeat through his hands.

“I love you.” It should have been harder to say, but it wasn’t. It was as easy as breathing, as easy as listening to Keith’s heartbeat. “And… I think you love me, too.”

“I’ve always loved you,” Keith murmured with no pause, no preamble, no fear. Keith was always the kind of man who jumped into things without worry or fear. “And I always will.”

They stood there, basking in the glow of the setting sun and a promise of a future, and Shiro realized that, given enough of it, time _could_ heal all wounds.

And now? 

Now, Shiro had time.

  



End file.
